Developing Employee Proactivity

Employee proactivity is highly valued, with modern organisations being increasingly under pressure for continual improvement and innovation. Under such circumstances, employees need to regularly take initiatives to improve their work methods and make suggestions to improve the organisational functioning, instead of relying on close direction from supervisors. Looking towards the future, scholars suggest that it is vital that humans proactively shape the new way of work.

Our research in this aspect focuses on cultivating factors of employee proactivity, including both individual and contextual influencing sources. We also seek to understand how employee proactivity influence the performance and well-being of both employees and organisations.

Leader secure-base support and organizational learning culture: Synergetic effects on employee state promotion focus and approach job crafting.

Article Link | DOI:10.1108/CDI-09-2021-0235

Authors: Tu, Y., Jiang, L., Long, L., & Wang, L.
Year of Publication: 2022
Journal: Career Development International
Volume No.: 27
Issue No.: 5
Page No.: 547-561
Abstract: Leader secure-base support, consisting of leader availability, noninterference and encouragement of growth, has important implications for stimulating employee proactivity. This study is aimed at examining whether, why and when leader secure-base support may motivate employees to engage in approach job crafting behavior. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory, we propose leader secure-base support is positively associated with employee approach job crafting via employee state promotion focus. Based on cue consistency theory, we further examine the moderating role of organizational learning culture in the associations of leader secure-base support with employee state promotion focus and subsequent approach job crafting.

Two-wave data were collected from 281 Chinese workers. Path analyses with Mplus 7 were conducted to test the hypotheses. As predicted, we found that leader secure-base support was positively related to employee state promotion focus and, in turn, facilitated employee approach job crafting. Moreover, organizational learning culture accentuated the impact of leader secure-base support on employee job crafting process. This study is the first to examine the influence of leader secure-base support on employee job crafting. It also identifies a boundary condition for such an influence.

Dynamic relationships between LMX and newcome r role - making behaviors: The role of emotional ambivalence.

Article Link | DOI:10.1177/00187267221075253

Authors: Wang, H–J., Jiang, L., Xu, X., Zhou, K., & Bauer, T. N.
Year of Publication: 2022
Journal: Human Relations
Volume No.: Early online publication
Abstract: We set out to understand how role-making works and what roles employees and leaders play in this process. Employees often make changes to their work roles, such as by negotiating their job responsibilities and seeking challenging tasks. In this study, we suggest that role-making behaviours influence and are influenced by the dyadic relationship between leaders and employees, otherwise known as leader–member exchange (LMX). We collected three waves of survey data from a sample of Chinese employees who were recent college graduates (n= 203). The results from cross-lagged panel analyses showed that (1) LMX and job-change negotiation were reciprocally related to each other and (2) initial LMX was associated with increased challenge-seeking behaviours, although these behaviours did not lead to greater LMX later on. In addition, we found evidence that when employees experienced a high level of emotional ambivalence (a conflicting, mixed and complex emotional state), the direct and reciprocal relationships between LMX and role-making behaviours were weakened. Our findings advance the understanding of the development of leader–employee relationships in the workplace and have implications for strengthening employee perceptions of high-quality relationships with their leaders by making changes to their workplace roles.

A test of competing theoretical models of meaningful work as a moderator in the curvilinear relationship between job insecurity and employee voice.

Article Link | DOI:10.1037/str0000229

Authors: Thaker, V., Jiang, L., & Xu, X.
Year of Publication: 2021
Journal:International Journal of Stress Management
Volume No.: 28
Issue No.: 3
Page No.: 165-175
Abstract: This study examined the curvilinear relationship between job insecurity and employee voice behaviors and whether meaningful work may moderate this relationship. We proposed competing hypotheses built on the premise of social exchange theory, which supports a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between job insecurity and voice, and the principle of activation theory, which posits an inverted U-shaped relationship between job insecurity and voice. Moreover, we posited that meaningful work may intensify the impact of job insecurity on employee voice. Using a two-wave cross-lagged design with a sample of 162 employees and controlling for voice at Time 1, we found that the inverted U-shaped relationship between job insecurity at Time 1 and voice at Time 2 was stronger among those reporting high (vs. low) meaningful work. The results support activation theory and demonstrate psychological vulnerability of those whose work is meaningful, but unfortunately, who face job insecurity.